Weleda Bolsters Hubs with WMS

Weleda AG is a leading manufacturer of anthroposophical medicine and holistic natural beauty products. The company has achieved a significant milestone with successful integration of the LFS warehouse management system supplied by EPG (Ehrhardt Partner Group) at its production location in Switzerland. Introducing the system signifies a crucial step in transitioning all manufacturing sites in the German-speaking region to LFS.

The Swiss pharmaceutical and natural beauty product group operates in a challenging sector defined by strict regulatory requirements and complex supply chains. It was faced with the increasingly necessary task of improving efficiency in its warehouse management processes at its production sites in Germany and Switzerland without losing the required flexibility in its warehouses.

Weleda was looking for a flexible warehouse management system which would provide administration for its entire logistics materials and information flow to meet its specific requirements as a medicine and natural beauty product manufacturer.

It settled on the LFS warehouse management system. Weleda now uses LFS at its Arlesheim production location to ensure that more than 8,000 downstream clients such as pharmacies, drug stores, hospitals, retail companies and mail order firms are reliably supplied with around 250 orders daily. LFS’s introduction in Switzerland is a pilot project which ultimately aims to allow all logistics processes to be mapped in LFS throughout the German-speaking region in the future.

Flexible, scalable, transparent

LFS collects and visualises all process data for intra-company logistics. Its well-organised logistics cockpit offers transparency in displaying future logistics processes such as goods receipts, order statuses and picking. This ensures early identification of process optimisations and warehouse potentials. Employees at control points receive proactive notifications of potential bottlenecks.

LFS seamlessly integrates into the existing Weleda infrastructure, enabling the use of standard processes and regular updates and allowing key users to configure and parametrise the system effortlessly. Client-specific adjustments have been made during installation to ensure optimal mapping of processes and perfect integration of hardware such as printers, scanners and workstations. The natural beauty experts are also obliged to take into account numerous GMP/GDP regulations. All WMS requirements needed to be documented, tested and validated in advance according to stringent criteria.

Partnership into the future

In addition to successfully completing the introduction of LFS, the partnership-based cooperation between all project participants merits special attention regarding further progress of the project. “The partnership between Weleda and EPG is defined by a dynamic in which all involved parties work closely together on a cooperative basis,” explain Eugen Risto and Salvatore Trovato, LVS Project Managers at Weleda. “It’s a partnership where every voice is heard and all members work consistently towards a common goal. Their professionalism and constructive approach mean we can look forward to the forthcoming launch at the German location confidently.”

Following successful incorporation at Arlesheim, the partners now aim to apply the experience they gained there to the logistics campus in the German city of Schwäbisch Gmünd with its high-bay warehouse for 17,200 pallets. Plans are in place to introduce EPG’s International Shipping System (ISS), a multi-carrier shipping software that already handles shipping logistics at Weleda’s headquarters effectively. The WCS material flow system is also to be integrated to control the automated storage units and conveyor systems efficiently.